The Smelliest Summer in British History
How the “Great Stink” of 1858 revealed the injustice of the Victorian class system
I n the summer of 1858, the putrid smell of the once-beloved River Thames became too much for members of the British Parliament to bear.
The thick summer heat combined with the cesspool known as “Father Thames” drifted into the House of Commons, prompting lawmakers to (finally) take action.
The River Thames — a long stretch of water that passes through Oxford and drains Greater London — had been accumulating human waste, and other unpleasant objects, for centuries.
Before the seventeenth century, low-paid workers called “night soil collectors” walked around London, shoveling piles of waste from the streets and placing them into the river. They didn’t have gloves or hazmat suits, inevitably leading to all kinds of illnesses common in Victorian England.
Deprived of the modern toilets and sewage systems we so often take for granted, Londoners during the nineteenth century therefore flushed their waste into the river.
Murder victims and even executed pirates were also dumped into the Thames, contributing to an even more ghastly smell.
The development of the sewage system in the River Thames was also disastrous.
